ABSTRACT

This article focuses on infanticide prosecution in sixteenth-century Spain, and the judicial fate of women suspected of violating both criminal law and Christian precepts in the era of Tridentine reform. Through court records from the Kingdom of Navarre (annexed by the Castilian crown in 1515), the author explores how women on trial for the suspicious death of their infants co-opted language of Christian maternity and Catholic sacramental morality to craft their defense against prosecutorial allegations of murder and sacrilege. The article argues that accused infanticidal mothers used performative public piety and doctrinal ambiguity surrounding the post-mortem fate of the unbaptized to their legal advantage, not only to plead their innocence but also to assert their reproductive agency before the early modern Spanish court.

摘要

本文重点关注 16 世纪西班牙的杀婴起诉，以及特里丹丁改革时代涉嫌违反刑法和基督教戒律的妇女的司法命运。通过纳瓦拉王国（1515 年被卡斯蒂利亚王室吞并）的法庭记录，作者探讨了因婴儿可疑死亡而受审的妇女如何利用基督教母性和天主教圣礼道德的语言来制定他们对起诉指控的辩护谋杀和亵渎。这篇文章认为，被指控的杀婴母亲使用表演性的公共虔诚和围绕未受洗者的死后命运的教义模棱两可的方式对他们的法律有利，不仅为她们辩护，而且还在早期现代西班牙法庭上主张她们的生育能力。